1) Bell Bajao – How Breakthrough Rang the Bell via the Internet

2) Social Publishing Strategy at Pratham Books – Pratham Books

3) WWF -Getting India to switch off their lights for Earth Hour

4) Dr. Mani Children Heart Foundation – the Heart Kids Tweetathon – and How Twitter Helps Save Lives

As I was going through the case studies from IndiaSocial Case Challenge, I realized that there is no formula for social media strategy. The level of engagement and the apertures are decided by the nature of the product in consideration and the stakeholders. For instance, we received quite a few entries from the not-for-profit organizations and it is intriguing to see how each one of them has a very different approach and strategy despite falling under the same category. They have a very different set of stakeholders each, and the aperture used to engage them differs accordingly. It is imperative and critical to understand the need and the objective first. Here is a quick recap of the case studies submitted in the voices of the brands who shared them.

The first person in the following case studies has been retained.

Not-for-profit organisations:

Bell Bajao – How Breakthrough Rang the Bell via the Internet

The Bell Bajao blog focused on making a platform for user generated content. Bell Bajao is a campaign which centres around enabling women and speaking against domestic violence. The online activities hence carried on by the Bell Bajao team are interactive, responsive and attentive of what others are saying. The campaign does not merely use the online space to showcase its work but sees it as a place to share, connect learn and reach out. There was no such space in the Indian context where people could talk about domestic violence, where people could share and learn and reach out etc. We never used the site as a static information tool. It is a space to share, learn, communicate, collaborate and act.
We realized that the radio and TV ads were for a limited period of time, so we needed a space which could keep the campaign alive, so the interactive online space.

Stakeholders: Youth present on the internet, which are capable of bringing a change in their respective homes and neighborhood. We wanted to appeal to the youth by breaking out of the traditional image of an NGO and use latest cutting edge technology to spread the message.
On the website, we had a downloadable tool kit, which had information on how net users can become virtual rights advocate (an online version of our training program), hosted contests, polls etc.

Apertures used: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Social Publishing Strategy at Pratham Books – Pratham Books

Objective of the campaign is to “Democratize the joy of reading”
The reason to do this is because we cannot put a book in every child’s hand alone – we needed help to locate, distribute and co-create content.
We followed a very unstructured approach to our social media efforts. It really did begin as an internal experiment to document the work we do and highlight work that others do in the same space.

Stakeholders: When we began, stakeholders were all internal. Now that we have a community being built, we are always listening as to how we can improve. We hope, it has been received well and even enthusiastically.

Apertures used:

• Blog: A resource which talks about publishing, reading, literacy, kidlit, learning, non-profits, events and more.
• Twitter: A space where we can engage with the community, share ideas, ask for help, get feedback, listen to complaints, participate and mobilize people to help us with our vision of ‘a book in every child’s hand’.
• Scribd: Uploading our books frequently so that they can be read by more people. Also, for our Creative Commons licensed books to be remixed/repurposed by the community in whatever way they wish to.
• Facebook: Updating information from the blog and information about the events we do and communicating with the community.
• Flickr: Documentation of the work we do and also to upload our Creative Commons licensed illustrations so that they can be remixed/reused.
• YouTube: Documentation of our work and to inform people about some of the initiatives we are participating in. Also to inform people about our books through book trailers.

Initiative included –

• Skype reading sessions
• Inviting people to remix/repurpose our content
• More access to our books
• Audio books for the National Association of Blind
• Passing it on – the book edition

WWF -Getting India to switch off their lights for Earth Hour

Earth Hour is a global awareness programme by WWF to create awareness on climate change and fight global warming. People participating in the Earth Hour voluntarily choose to switch off their lights of their homes and offices for one hour to make their stand against climate change. For the first time in 2009, WWF India took the initiative to bring this campaign to India.

Stakeholders: General public who were online

Apertures used: An interactive and informative Earth Hour India site was created asking people to register themselves. Social media channels on Facebook Cause, Orkut Community, Twitter , YouTube, and Flickr photostream were created and these were used to engage with people and direct them to the site.

Within 18 days, the Earth Hour site got 1,23,704 visitors; 28,484 people registered on the website to participate in the Earth Hour event; the Earth Hour Facebook Cause got 19,059 members; the Orkut Community got 4,547 members; the Flickr photostream received 1,700 views; the Twitter channel got followed by 321 followers. Earth Hour 2009 was a huge success and the programme is on its way to another successful year in India now.

Dr. Mani Children Heart Foundation – the Heart Kids Tweetathon – and How Twitter Helps Save Lives
In an innovative use of social networking site Twitter, Indian heart surgeon Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian does an annual event to raise awareness and funds for children born with congenital heart defects – by staying awake for 24 hours non-stop in a day-and-night Twitter marathon – the Heart Kids Tweet-a-thon.

Stakeholders: A large network of small business owners, entrepreneurs, social workers and generous, caring donors

Apertures used: Heart Kids Blogathon, 47 Hearts Group, You Tube videos, Twitter, Facebook

IndiaSocial Case Challenge – edition 1

Category: Short-term Projects

Winner of Position #3

Title : WWF – Getting India to switch off their lights for Earth Hour

Share a little about your organisation

WWF India is one of the largest conservation organisation engaged in wildlife and nature conservation in the country. A part of WWF International, the organisation has made its presence felt through a sustained effort not only towards nature and wildlife conservation, but sensitising people by creating awareness through capacity building and enviro-legal activism.

Executive Summary
Earth Hour is a global awareness programme by WWF to create awareness on climate change and fight global warming. People participating in the Earth Hour voluntarily choose to switch off their lights of their homes and offices for one hour to make their stand against climate change. For the first time in 2009, WWF India took the initiative to bring this campaign to India. The task was to spread awareness about this programme in India and encourage people to participate. An interactive and informative Earth Hour India site was created asking people to register themselves. Social media channels on Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr were created and these were used to engage with people and direct them to the site. Within 18 days, the Earth Hour site got 1,23,704 visitors; 28,484 people registered on the website to participate in the Earth Hour event; the Earth Hour Facebook Cause got 19,059 members; the Orkut Community got 4,547 members; the Flickr photostream received 1,700 views; the Twitter channel got followed by 321 followers. Earth Hour 2009 was a huge success and the programme is on its way to another successful year in India now.

Background

Earth Hour is a global awareness program by WWF to create awareness on climate change and fight global warming. It was initiated in Sydney in the year 2007 when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change. In 2009, the need was felt to promote the concept of Earth Hour in India and WWF India took up the responsibility.

Approach/ Strategy

Please share details about the initiative stating clearly the strategy, objectives, goals, the duration, resources and budgets allocated.

The overall objective of the campaign was to create awareness about global warming and get people to participate in the Earth Hour initiative by switching off their lights on 28th March 2009.
Our approach to achieve this goal was to create an India specific site for Earth Hour and get people to register themselves to support the campaign. In order to drive people to the site, various social media channels were created and a sponsored online ad campaign was undertaken.

Stakeholders

Which stakeholders did you engage through this initiative and how? How was/ has this initiative been received by them so far?

Stakeholders we engaged were the general public who were online.

About the initiative

Share details about your activities, touch-points that you created/ channels you used to reach the stakeholders.

1. Create an India site of the Earth Hour campaign where local content was added and made interactive to encourage participation and exchange of opinion. The site asked people to register themselves in support of the campaign. Interactive features like a quiz and a ‘Share Your Idea’ were added to engage the users.
2. To raise awareness about the site and the campaign, we undertook a paid online ad campaign on the Google site and its network sites.
3. An Orkut group, Flickr photostream, Twitter account, and a YouTube channel were created to engage with people on these platforms and share interesting information and multimedia.
4. A Facebook Cause page was created.

Impact – Outcome

What was the impact achieved vis-à-vis goals set? How did you measure the impact/ results?

Within 18 days, the Earth Hour site got 1,23,704 visitors; 28,484 people registered to participate on the website; the Earth Hour Facebook Cause got 19,059 members; the Orkut Community got 4,547 members; the Flickr photostream received 1,700 views; the Twitter channel got followed by 321 followers. Earth Hour 2009 was a huge success and the programme is on its way to another successful year in India now.

The paid advertising CTR beat the industry average of 0.55% to 0.88%. The average CPC for the campaign (Rs. 6.25) was also much lesser compared to the average CPC paid by Indian advertiser (Rs. 16.20).

The interactive elements like the quiz got 3,732 visits and ‘Share you Ideas’ got 535 visits.

Learnings

What were the key learnings? Positive and things to do better; share any challenges you might have faced.

One challenge we faced was the timeline. The online programme started just 18 days before the Earth Hour Day. This was a very short time to plan and execute the programme.

What Next

Where is the programme/ initiative now? Where will it go from here?

Earth Hour 2010 is coming up in March 2010 and WWF India is again gearing up to make Earth Hour a tremendous success in India.

Reasoning

What in your opinion makes your programme/ initiative/ activity a case-study/ best practice case.

The initiative helped Earth Hour become a popular initiative in India and more than thousands of people in India participated in the Earth Hour 2009.

Credits – Strategy

Strategy and Execution

Puretech Internet Private Limited.

Factsheet

Name of the company: Puretech Internet Private Limited.

Number of Employees:Prashant Deorah

Category: Not-for-profit institution

Case submitted by: Prashant Deorah

Website: http://www.puretech.com

There were no cash rewards, no award ceremonies, no festivals… just pure rigour. From the submission form (not for the faint-hearted), to the  judging process that our esteemed panel of judges adopted, it has been about recognising the best social media work in India. We received a total of 37  submissions  of  social media work in India, of which 3 winners each under, Long-term initiatives and Short-term project categories have been selected.

There are several ‘non-winning’ entries that missed by a small margin; the quality of insights and work on these and many other was fantastic and we’d be sharing many of these with you over the next few days and weeks.

Here are the winners!

Long-term Initiatives

Position # 1

Pratham Books – Social Publishing Strategy at Pratham Books (Score – 8.1 : 10)

We’d like to think that we spread the love, so to speak, but realistically, we’re going to have to build a platform sometime soon to engage our community to co-create and do so much more to contribute to the cause of a book in every child’s hands…

Read case-study here.

Position # 2

Fastrack  – Fastrack Fans (Score 7.6 : 10)*

Our initiative is focused around the experience we deliver to the fans and both current and potential, driving them toward a better, and more personalized connection with the brand…

* One of the juges abstained citing conflict of interest.

Read case-study here.

Position # 3

Cleartrip Travel Services Pvt. Ltd. – How the Cleartrip brand travels through social media (Score 7.3 : 10)

Cleartrip has upheld integrity and transparency as foundational values of our brand. Embracing these values has made it incredibly easy for the brand and the organization to have an active social media presence…

Read the case-study here.

Short-term Projects

Position #1

Hindustan Motors – Mitsubishi Cedia – The Great Driving Challenge (Score 7.0 : 10)

Consumer research reiterated that a loyal Cedia owner loved to get behind its wheels and just drive. So when it was time to launch the new Mitsubishi Cedia sports, HML wanted to reach out to their target audience and engage the travel fanatics in conversations around “a long drive”

Read the case-study here.

Position #2

Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation – The Heart Kids Tweetathon – And How Twitter Helps Save Lives (Score – 6.5 : 10)

…even in the midst of a deep recession, the 2010 event held on February 14th, brought in close to $5,000. As the Foundation’s cost to sponsor a child’s operation is around $1,250 the Tweetathon alone will be responsible for healing more than 10 little hearts!

Read case-study here.

Position #3

WWF – Getting India to switch off their lights for Earth Hour (Score 6.3 : 10)

Earth Hour is a global awareness programme by WWF to create awareness on climate change and fight global warming. People participating in the Earth Hour voluntarily choose to switch off their lights of their homes and offices for one hour to make their stand against climate change.

Read the case-study here.

Final Shortlist

The entries that made it to the final phase in the case challenge were –

Long Term Initiative	Short Term Project
Fastrack	Channel V – Using Twitter to create buzz around the relaunch of Channel [V] in August 2009
Hard Rock Café	Hindustan Motors – Mitsubishi Cedia – The Great Driving Challenge – India’s Most Succesful Social Media Campaign.
MTV – NO. 1 Social Brand in India	UBL – Kingfisher Beer
MTV – Best use of Social media: Sony Ericsson MTV Roadies Battleground	Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation
Pratham Books	KPIT Cummins Infosystems Ltd – WidUS (Widget designing for University Students)
Breakthrough	WWF India – Getting India to switch off their lights for Earth Hour.
8 Day Academy
Celebrity – Priyanka Chopra
BLANK NOISE
BookMyShow
Tata Docomo
Nokia Email With Ease Campaign
Nokia “Search for N”
NASSCOM
Goanet
Cleartrip Travel Services Pvt. Ltd.

Evaluation Process

• Step 1 – All judges evaluated each entry and categorised them as ‘Keep’ or ‘Drop’
• Step 2 – For any entry which had votes between 2, 3, 4 or 5 ‘Keep’ votes, the judges who had voted for ‘keep’ stated, briefly, why they had voted so
  • If there were 5 votes out of 6, against a case, it was dropped
  • If there were 5 votes out of 6, for a case, it was promoted to Phase 3
  • Only the ones with 2, 3, 4 or keep 5 votes were voted upon again by all
  • A simple majority again decided who got promoted to Step 3

• Step 3 -  All the finalists got another detailed viewing by the judges, who then rated the case studies on a scale of 1-10
• Step 4 – Scores as given by all judges (if a judge was associated with a programme, he/ she would abstain and no scores would be granted), was averaged by the total number of judges who voted and winners selected

The evaluation process ensured that all the judges on the panel reviewed each case study and also evaluated over several phases.

Since the judges did not have access to one another’s scores prior to submission of their own scores, their own evaluation was independent and totally unbiased.

Judges Speak

The final results were arrived after a rigorous evaluation process by the panel. Here is what some of our judges had to say on the case challenge –

When it comes to effective social media usage, we often hear only about success stories in the US. There are wonderful, innovative usage in Indian companies and the IndiaSocial case study challenge has unearthed many such gems by crowdsourcing” – Kiruba Shankar, CEO, Business Blogging

I hope this encourages social media marketers and agencies to craft strategies that are realistic, achievable, innovative and sustainable, those which effectively engage the community and deliver a delight” – Dina Mehta, Co-Founder & Head of Research, Mosoci

On behalf of allof us at IndiaSocial, I’d like to thank all our judges for putting in their time, effort and rigour to identify the best social media case studies in India. We’d also like to thank impact weekly and exchange4media.com, our partners for the initiative, for their generous support like always

Infact, pick up a copy of impact magazine’s latest issue (on stands tomorrow) which features all winners of the IndiaSocial Case Challenge – 1. Do share your thoughts and comments – it’s an Open invitation.

Cheers